Squares or 'About Last Night'
by LonelyHeart101
Summary: “...She’s trying to punish him. It’s not a just, or a fair, or even a particularly nice thing to do but she’s frightened that her heart is not big enough to hold two people’s pain...” The morning after the night before - Owen/Cristina


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Grey's Anatomy or any characters affiliated with it. This is just written for my own general amusement and no other purpose.

I have a couple of lighter pieces in the works but I thought I'd post this first before Thursday's new episode. Last episode was amazing; this is my 'what happens next' attempt.

Read, review and enjoy : O)

**Squares - or - 'About Last Night..."  
**

It was never going to be the greatest idea in the world turning up for their first date blind drunk and chatty.

Owen winces, partly due to his pounding head and partly due to the tiny fragments of the utter ass he'd made of himself the previous evening slowly clicking back into place -

No wonder she's avoiding him.

He wishes he could avoid himself - then maybe he might be able to forget the fact that she now knows things about him that even his own goddamn mother doesn't.

He wants to explain that what he thrust upon her last night is not him but some fractured version distorted by whisky and too many sleepless nights. He keeps it together most of the time and can even hold his drink too.

He'll be whole again, sometime, at some point, if only because he does not ever want to put her through last night again.

_---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Cristina slams a pile of charts onto the desk causing several interns to jump in fright.

Suck it up, she wants to scream at them. You have to suck it up because sometimes people jump into showers wearing suits and give you pieces of their soul and there's nothing you can do about it.

_No, actually that's not true. You can duck round corners and hide in empty exam rooms._

Laying everything on the line for this broken husk of a man is not a prospect that's thrilling her. It's horrible and she hates herself for it but it's better that he finds out now that she's the kind of woman who will hide underneath the Nurse's Station in order to not see him.

...She's trying to punish him. It's not a just, or a fair, or even a particularly nice thing to do but she's frightened that her heart is not big enough to hold two people's pain...

_And he's coming over, Oh God, he's coming over... _

She wants to duck under the Nurse's Station again but figures that since he's already seen her it would probably be considered juvenile.

"Dr Yang," he greets, eyes darting nervously.

Cristina resolutely keeps her head down and inwardly wonders whether she could be disciplined for so blatantly ignoring a superior. She can't look him in the eye though, because now she sees him.

He tries again, fighting for control to keep his voice even and not attract attention. "Dr Yang."

Still nothing.

"Dammit Cristina, look at me!" he snaps. Well that ought to do it.

Grey and the blond who wants to save all the pigs look up from their charting with a start. With a sinking feeling in his stomach Owen realises that he has now made Cristina's life that little bit more difficult ...and probably his too...if that was even possible.

"Dr. Hunt," she nods curtly, fists clenching with tension.

"I need..." he starts, realising far too late that after beginning a conversation with someone you really do need something more of a springboard than simply a constant repetition of their name. "I need..."

She screws her eyes tight shut and hopes to hell that he doesn't say her.

"...I need... to talk to you."

"Uh, why?" she inquires even though it's crystal clear.

And then there's that same lost look on his face that she can't help but be drawn to even when this time it's not dripping with water.

_____________________________________________________________________

Cristina lets herself be pulled into an empty call room, resolutely attempting to avoid Meredith and Izzie's hungry gazes...

"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "It was too much for you far too soon and I screwed up."

She stays quiet, trying to compose a suitable response to a statement that is in many ways quite true but in other ways so utterly beside the point.

"The flowers were pretty," she replies - _the verbal equivalent of hiding behind a corner._

He smiles weakly, mind flipping back to one of the only things he did sober that previous night.

But she's not finished yet and seems really, really nervous about what's coming next. "Whatever _this_ is, there are four people in it and that's too many," she states softly. "That's a square."

He frowns, looking for her to elaborate and at the same time hoping that she won't.

"There's me and my crap and you and your..." she trails off, at loath to lump a megalomaniac surgeon and so, so far too many dead soldiers into the same category.

"I just... I can't fix you," she finishes softly, finally voicing the thought that has been screaming for attention in her mind ever since she left him crashed out on her bed and went across the street to work the morning shift even though she had a day off.

His hand reaches out to smooth down one of her stray curls and he pulls her towards him.

_"I'll make this right," he murmurs deep into her hair. "We'll make this right together, I promise."_


End file.
